No Boost in Support For Repealing Obamacare

In more “no game change” news, Ron Brownstein reports today that a new and very detailed United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows little change in basic attitudes towards Obamacare since the last survey of its kind in July:

Amid all the tumult over the law’s troubled implementation, the survey found that public opinion about it largely follows familiar political tracks and has changed remarkably little since the summer on the critical question of what Congress should do next. On that measure, support for repeal has not significantly increased among any major group except Republicans and working-class whites since the Congressional Connection Poll last tested opinion on the question in July.

At present, asked if Congress should repeal Obamacare, leave it alone for now, or provide more funds to help its implementation, repeal is opposed by a 59-38 margin, with, as Brownstein noted, repeal sentiment being mainly confined to Republican and Republican-leaning parts of the electorate. That means two things: Republicans will continue to be encouraged by their “base” to screw up the Affordable Care Act, and Democrats will have little real political incentive to cave.

It also means, of course, that if “repeal Obamacare” sentiment hasn’t much risen despite all the hysteria of the last few weeks, there’s no particular reason to think it will go higher before the law has a fighting chance to work. And as everyone should understand by now, come January 1 the ranks of those with a very tangible stake in the law’s survival is going to go up sharply, even as Republicans try to figure out how to square their desire to kill it with their recent “keep your insurance” rhetoric.